June 20 1941.

Two a.m.

Nathan and Helen Drew listen in silence to the purr of planes flying overhead the clip of Nazi soldiers marching through the streets. The Second World War they know has reached them at last.

With crosses around their necks the Jewish couple lived in plain sight throughout most of the German occupation. In Łomża they watched their city transform into a place of death and desperation ravaged by the brutal annihilation of its residents. For the rest of their lives Nathan and Helen would be burdened by the crimes they witnessed and by their own survivor's guilt.

Both a moving true story and a series of haunting recollections The Counterfeit Poles shines a light on the unspeakable horrors of a city under Nazi control and the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of the most difficult and dangerous of circumstances.

Nathan Drew (originally Podruznik) was born in Łomża Poland then part of Imperial Russia on August 23 1912. Helen (born Kochanovicz) was born also in Łomża on May 1 1916. Before the Second World War he was a gym teacher and later the principal of the secular portion of a Jewish religious school.

After the war they immigrated to the United States arriving in June 1946. After a few years of struggle Nathan became a successful businessman involved in export and import living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

He died in 2006 age 93 survived by his wife Helen who passed in 2010 age 94.